Will we ever be able to predict evolution with the same precision that we can predict the phases of the moon?
The Predictability of Life, including some stunning fractal illustrations by Rob Montgomery.

I recently wrote an article on how species are adapting to climate change, which came from the motivation of appreciation of nature, of how it is battling back and some of the cool resourcefulness it’s showing. But it turned out to be unbelievably depressing to write, not least because we are savaging, actually fucking raping, the planet, but because we’ve known about climate change for SO LONG. Scientists have been shouting about it for decades. Decades. It’s only recently become a consensus that it’s even happening, and in the time that we’ve known about it until now we have lost incredible amounts of life.

Until I started research climate change was something I’d grown up hearing – a buzz phrase that I had become numb to; my idea of it more the slippery tail of something that is already out of hand, bleak enough to turn on willful ignorance. My actions have been informed more by environmentalists’ anger than the actual consequences.

I am ashamed to have held this view, but there it is. I couldn’t see how turning the tap off when we brush our teeth could have much of an impact when our desecration is so ingenious and thorough in so many more ways. Awareness is not enough. We have to sort this out. I’m not sure how yet – I might go to Africa and start dishing out condoms – but our planet is pretty awesome, and we’re screwing it.